Planet Grenada

Islam is at the heart of an emerging global anti-hegemonic culture that combines diasporic and local cultural elements, and blends Arab, Islamic, black and Hispanic factors to generate "a revolutionary black, Asian and Hispanic globalization, with its own dynamic counter-modernity constructed in order to fight global imperialism. (say what!)

6. Dr. Farrokh Sekaleshfar was a cleric who came to Orlando to give an academic talk on homosexuality in Islam. A snippet of his talk was quoted repeatedly in the news. But here is a broader sample of Dr. Sekaleshfar's comments.

Friday, June 17, 2016

I haven't been blogging for a while, but I feel like putting this out there. One of the interesting details which have emerged from the horrifically intersectional onion-like complexity of the recent Orlando shooting are accounts of Imran Yousuf, an ex-marine and bouncer at the nightclub who saved dozens of lives during the attack:
What was really weird to me is that the initial reports identified Yousuf as a Hindu when he clearly had a Muslim name (both Imran and Yusuf are in the Quran). It also raised questions in terms of who gets included or excluded in what "Muslim" means in the popular consciousness. The church-going black president who repeatedly claims to be Christian? Muslim. The mass-murdering, Grindr-using, alcohol-drinking, gay-club regular? Muslim. The hero who saved at least 60 people during the Orlando shooting with a Muslim name? Hindu.
I finally found an article which unpacks a bit more info regarding Imran Yousuf's background in India West:

The Yousufs emigrated from India to Guyana four generations ago. Imran Yousuf’s paternal grandfather is Muslim, and his grandmother is Hindu, so his father Rasheed is a mix of both ethnicities. Yousuf’s mother Norma is Hindu, and Imran Yousuf identifies as a Hindu, said Christina Yousuf.

So its not clear how exactly his father identified, but loosely speaking, Imran is "one quarter" Muslim. .. which should be at least one half Muslim by birther standards, right?

Sunday, July 05, 2015

For a while I've been fascinated by the Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis. The basic idea is that St. Elsewhere, an 80's hospital drama/comedy is television's version of Kevin Bacon, in other words, if you keep track of the various cameos, crossovers, spinoffs, and fictional allusions, it turns out that hundreds of tv shows arguably exist in the same fictional universe as St. Elsewhere. Furthermore, based on St. Elsewhere's final episode, it turns out that the show (and all the shows linked to it) are happening inside of the mind of an autistic boy named Tommy Westphall who spends his days staring at a snowglobe.

There are numerous sites/blogs maintained by folks keeping track of which shows are part of the universe, but I'm not sure how complete or up-to-date any of them are.

An idea that has been on my literary bucket list is to write stories (something in the ballpark of the League of the Extraordinary Gentlemen) which thoroughly broke down the boundaries between shows in the Tommy Westphall universe

Some more specific notions:

1. A major protagonist would be Det. Munch (who has appeared in several different series, most recently, the Law & Order franchise).

2. A major antagonist would be a Conspiracy which uses Morley Cigarettes Inc. as one of its fronts. (Morley is a fictional brand which connects many shows: The Twilight Zone, Buffy, X-Files The Walking Dead)

3. One of the conspiracies objectives is to find /exploit both Tommy Westphall and the snowglobe as a way of gaining power.

4. Organized criminals / serial killers also connected to the Conspiracy might be a good way to connect different police procedural / legal type shows.

5. The Conspiracy also releases a series of infections which culminates in a Walking Dead style zombie apocalypse. This might be a good way to connect the hospital / medical type shows.

It would also be fun to imagine how to combine various genre shows into a coherent pastiche. although doing it consistently would probably be difficult.

7. Supernatural Shows

Addams Family, American Horror Story, Angel, Bewitched, Buffy, Early Edition, I Dream of Jeannie, Milenium, Reaper, Sabrina the Teenage Witch (Is the Conspiracy connected to the Millenium Group or the League of the Black Thorn? Is the snowglobe related to the newspaper in Early Edition?)

8: Sci-Fi (present)

Alias, Alphas, Dr. Who, Eerie, Indiana, Eureka, Flashforward, Heroes, Journeyman, The Lone Gunman, Lost, Mork and Mindy, Quantum Leap, The Sarah Jane Adventures, Special Unit 2, Torchwood, Warehouse 13, X-Files (John Doggett and Monica Reyes from the X-Files might be a good duo to help Munch. Perhaps after Samuel Beckett disappears and Project Leap is mostly boxed-up, a happily married Al Calavicci is appointed to a Cabinet-level position overseeing the X-Files /Warehouse 13 / Special Unit 2 / CONTROL / Dharma Initiative / Department of Special Research)

9: Sci-Fi (future)

Battlestar Galactica (reboot), Caprica, Firefly, Red Dwarf, Space: 1999, Space: Above & Beyond, Star Trek (Star Trek is too totalizing to reconcile with some of these other shows, but perhaps elements can be combined in reasonable ways. There is a Federation/Alliance but there are also Maquis/Brownshirts who want to secede. There is also a part of space where they send Space Marine types to fight a secret war against the Chigs? The Conspiracy, in this period might use Weyland-Yutani / Blue Sun / The ORion Syndicate as their main front.)

10. It would be fun to explain the multiple roles played by the same actors through some kind of Orphan Black- style project.

Just some thoughts. Who knows? Maybe this will become a sub-genre of fan fiction, in its own right?

The recording has long been understood to be a deeply spiritual, even devotional, piece. Its four phases - "Acknowledgement", "Resolution", "Pursuance" and "Psalms" - reflect what Coltrane described as a "spiritual awakening" in his overcoming of drug and alcohol problems.

Yet, what was the nature of that "spiritual awakening"? The conventional view is that by 1964, Coltrane had moved away from his Methodist upbringing, adopting a "pan-religious" outlook with a particular interest in Eastern mysticism. In spite of that, "A Love Supreme" is still described as laden with Biblical symbolism: the title "Psalm", and the rising cadences, reminiscent of black preachers' style, are offered as evidence that Coltrane was still rooted in Christianity. But ask one of the jazzmen or Muslim elders who knew Coltrane, and you get a different answer.

The saxophonist Yusef Lateef, who died at the age of 93 earlier this year, worked closely with Coltrane between 1963 and 1966. In his autobiography , "A Gentle Giant", Lateef says: "The prayer that John wrote in 'A Love Supreme' repeats the phrase 'All praise belongs to God no matter what' several times. This phrase has the semantics of the al-Fatiha, which is the first chapter or sura of the Holy Quran. The Arabic transliteration is 'al-Humdulilah…' Since all faithful Muslims say the al-Fatiha five times a day or more, it is reasonable to assume that John heard this phrase from [his Muslim wife] Sister Naima many times."

Lateef is referring to the poem Coltrane wrote and included in the liner notes of the album. Coltrane wrote: "No matter what … It is with God. He is gracious and merciful" and ends with "All praise to God..."

What Lateef and others have noted is that "gracious and merciful" is a translation of "rahman raheem", the opening lines of the Fatiha. Moreover, say the elders, when Coltrane begins chanting the album's title for half a minute it sounds like a Sufi breathily repeating "Allah supreme".

The relationship between Islam and jazz is almost a century-old. It was in the 1920s that the Ahmadiyya movement, a heterodox Islamic movement that emerged in 19th century India, began sending missionaries to US cities, building a substantial following among African Americans in the decades to come. In a trend that still intrigues historians and music critics, after World War II, scores of jazz musicians embraced Ahmadi Islam.

When Coltrane arrived in Philadelphia in 1943, the Muslim presence in the "city of brotherly love" would rattle the young man. As he told an interviewer in 1958: "This Muslim thing came up. I got introduced to that. And that kind of shook me."

The saxophonist was surrounded by Muslims: his drummer Rashied Ali was Muslim, as was his pianist McCoy Tyner (Suleiman Saud), and saxophonist Lateef. Coltrane then married Naima Grubbs, an observant Muslim. Even Coltrane's band members have pondered his relationship to Islam. If Lateef suspected that Coltrane's art was influenced by the Quran, the drummer Rashied Ali thought that the saxophonist was "a real country boy" and that "he was into being a Muslim and everything like that".
One also hears the argument that Coltrane wanted to title his composition Allah Supreme - instead of A Love Supreme - but was worried about a political backlash, given the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
"Back then jazz and Islam were intertwined - the first time I heard the adhan on Temple University radio, I thought it was a Nina Simone song," says Imam Nadim Ali, a celebrated jazz deejay and community leader who spent his youth in Philadelphia. "Artists were deeply influenced by Islam - sometimes publicly in their art, sometimes privately."

It's not inconceivable that "A Love Supreme" could have been inspired by the Quran. After all, as the elders will observe, "Celebration", that great funk hit by Kool & the Gang, was inspired by a Quranic sura.

"The initial idea came from the Quran," says Ronald Bell (Khalis Bayyan), the group's saxophonist and musical arranger. "I was reading the passage, where God was creating Adam, and the angels were celebrating and singing praises. That inspired me to write the basic chords, the line, 'Everyone around the world, come on, celebration'."

This song inspired by Islam - and released in 1980 - would become an international hit heard at ball games and political rallies in the US, and ironically was played by the Reagan administration on February 7, 1981, to welcome home the hostages held by students in the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It is striking how much of the majority’s reasoning would apply with equal force to the claim of a fundamental right to plural marriage. If “[t]here is dignity in the bond between two men or two women who seek to marry and in their autonomy to make such profound choices,” why would there be any less dignity in the bond between three people who, in exercising their autonomy, seek to make the profound choice to marry? If a same-sex couple has the constitutional right to marry because their children would otherwise “suffer the stigma of knowing their families are somehow lesser,” why wouldn’t the same reasoning apply to a family of three or more persons raising children? If not having the opportunity to marry “serves to disrespect and subordinate” gay and lesbian couples, why wouldn’t the same “imposition of this disability,” serve to disrespect and subordinate people who find fulfillment in polyamorous relationships?

Here are a range of other voices weighing in on the relationship between gay marriage and polygamy.

Ello, the so-called anti-Facebook is actually on the interesting side. Ad-free. Nice design. Original content. It is still in its beta phase so they are still gradually rolling out its features. And the community is still growing. Nevertheless, It should be a nice alternative to Facebook.

I had last worked on this over two years ago (Thursday April 18, 2013) and left it as a draft, but given recent events, I thought I should probably dust this off and publish it.... and think about a part three....
Another element of the popular culture which has gotten me thinking about Game of Thrones vs. Brave New World is the show Switched at Birth. The show is a drama on ABC Family which (as the title implies) involves two girls who, as babies, were switched at the hospital and went home to the wrong family. One grew up as Daphne Vasquez and was raised by a Puerto Rican Latina single mother. (The mother's Italian-French-Arab boyfriend had been in the picture but then left when a paternity test confirmed that Daphne was not his daughter). Also a childhood bout with meningitis has left Daphne deaf. The other girl grew up as Bay Kennish, who was given a fairly comfortable upbringing, raised with a younger "brother" by a retired major league baseball player and a stay-at-home mom.
The show has gotten a bit melodramatic lately, but it is surprisingly thought-provoking for a teenage drama; raising issues of nature vs. nurture, class, race, ethnicity, privilege, deaf culture, and the nature of family obligation.
The reason why I bring it up in the context of Game of Thrones vs. Brave New World is because of the surprising way the show seems to deal with issues of custody. Even after the hospital's mistake is discovered by the two families, the girls don't simply go back to their natural families but instead the two families move in together (the wealthy Kennishes happen to have an empty guest house) and form a complex blended arrangement.